Category Archives: Religious Affairs
Encounters with the Common Good
I know I am not alone in struggling not to be overwhelmed at times by all the negativity in so many words and acts, a sense of despair about the state of the world from Brexit to Trump, via massacres and other man-made disasters. So let me share three shared encounters in recent days that reminded me that our spirits can be lifted if we allow other less binary, less visceral and conflictive human narratives to give us direction and a sense of common purpose. The first was a silent …
‘Silence’: A film worth discernment
I am grateful to Father Nye, a wise old Jesuit friend for advising me to go and see and make my own mind up about Silence which arrived at my local London movie house on New Year’s Day. ‘Only don’t expect humour. It doesn’t have any’, ‘he added. Up to that point a reading of some reviews had led me to thinking I might avoid it. The suggestion was that this was an overlong and dark film, with a somewhat leaden dialogue, a miscast central character, and containing scenes of …
Superstar for the Nineties
Published: 30 November 1996 The musical Jesus Christ Superstar, first performed 26 years ago, is being revived on the London stage. It provoked cries of blasphemy when it first appeared. An author and journalist who was inspired by it then went to see the new version. I was 17 turning 18 when, back in 1970, the portrayal of Jesus Christ as a rock star first stirred my imagination and fuelled my enthusiasm in a way countless catechism lessons, sermons, and picture-book lives of saints had not done during my childhood. …
